Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45290
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **First Drafts, Writing and Rewriting**

This is your first draft, right?

Your process could be that you produce a lot of dialog.

You can fix that when you edit the text.

To quote Hemingway ([or Arnold Samuelson?](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/09/20/draft/)): "The first draft of anything is shit."

Go back (now or once the first draft is done) and look at your scenes. Do you see things (character action, setting, etc) that are not on paper? Then add that.

Imagine what your first-time reader will see in their head (or won't see) when they read your text and edit to make that image what you like it to be.

As long as your **final** version of the text has a good mix of dialog, internal emotion, description, action, etc, it does not matter what the text looks like right now!

After all, writing is rewriting (also a quote from someone or several someones...)

(Case in point: click the "edited" link in the center of the footer of this answer to see my edits... or click that link on any other edited answer on Writing.SE. I'm pretty sure you'll find that the answers improve with each edit.)

**Conflict**

So what does that good mix in a scene look like then?

You have several good answers here already (avoid talking-heads, center the scene in a room with things and people, paint a picture, etc), but I'd like to add that dialog, as well as a whole scene should have conflict.

You get conflict by having characters with opposite or incompatible goals.

If you find yourself writing a scene where all the characters have the same goals, consider putting the whole thing in a [sequel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scene_and_sequel) instead of a scene, if it's important enough to not warrant being cut completely.

**Subtext**

Dialog is also special in that it can (should!) have subtext.

It can, in contrary to many other parts of a text, have the characters say one thing and mean another.

Good dialog has a surface level containing what is said and done, and a sub-level where something else is going on, something that can change the meaning of the surface level or enhance it.

In order to show the dialog has a double meaning, you need more than just the words. Goals and internal emotion are most often used, but facial expressions, body tension, and action can also show something else is going on.

If one of two passionate-talking lovers is backing away there's something up with the "passion."

Not using subtext in dialog is wasting an opportunity to make the scene do double duty.

Obviously, this means that much dialog along the line...

> "Let's go to a movie."
> 
> "Yeah! Let's!"

...could easily be placed in a sequel ("They went to see Endgame.") unless the subtext is along the line of...

> "Let's go make out in the darkness!"
> 
> "I'm famished and would love to be near your juicy, blood-filled neck in a dark room!"

...hinting at conflict due to pretty incompatible goals...

Original score: 6